


Aftermath: The Past is in the Past

by orphan_account



Series: Human Instrumentality Project [5]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Aggressive uses of the word 'sir'., Gen, It all comes tumbling down; tumbling down; tumbling dooown for Mustang.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-02
Updated: 2014-04-02
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1406572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seemed to Captain Riza Hawkeye that the curved moon overhead would continue to sneer at her far past sunrise. A fanciful, chimerical thought, of course, and utterly preposterous at that, since the moon could neither sneer nor remain in the sky in the middle of the day, yet she narrowed her eyes at the heavens nevertheless. The balcony doors whispered shut while she steadily refused to look.</p><p>A noise. A cough. She lowered her gaze to the man backlit in silver that pooled over the waterfall of the white scarf around his shoulders. Mustang leaned on the railing, elbows angled so that his lower forearms rested gently on the curve. “I hear that you’re in the running for another promotion. Major Hawkeye.” He might have smiled. “Of course, since I’m your superior officer, I’ll—”</p><p>Expression: entirely placid. Voice: completely calm. “Good evening. If I may ask, what was that about, sir?” He coughed against, this time more harshly. “I’ve warned you about spending too much time in Havoc’s apartment, sir.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath: The Past is in the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my tongue-in-cheek named series _Human Instrumentality Project_. Prompt: "Attitudes A - arrogance versus humility". With a twist from what one might expect, of course.
> 
> Special thanks to my two great motivators for helping me put this out. You guys rock (and you know who you are). Also, the soundtrack that I had intended to use for this fic applies more from Mustang's perspective at the moment. I decided to save it for later (as at the moment the revelation I'd intended would cause some out-of-characterness).
> 
> Unedited/unbeta'd/etc.

It seemed to Captain Riza Hawkeye that the curved moon overhead would continue to sneer at her far past sunrise. A fanciful, chimerical thought, of course, and utterly preposterous at that, since the moon could neither sneer nor remain in the sky in the middle of the day, yet she narrowed her eyes at the heavens nevertheless. The balcony doors whispered shut while she steadily refused to look.

A noise. A cough. She lowered her gaze to the man backlit in silver that pooled over the waterfall of the white scarf around his shoulders. Mustang leaned on the railing, elbows angled so that his lower forearms rested gently on the curve. “I hear that you’re in the running for another promotion. Major Hawkeye.” He might have smiled. “Of course, since I’m your superior officer, I’ll—”

Expression: entirely placid. Voice: completely calm. “Good evening. If I may ask, what was that about, sir?” He coughed against, this time more harshly. “I’ve warned you about spending too much time in Havoc’s apartment, sir.”

“I haven’t been,” he answered more absentmindedly than anything. Her frown deepened. “Besides, if I’ve been inhaling smoke, it’s from my own flames.” Pause. The wind rustled the trees; a leaf skittered across the balcony to drop off from the other side. Mustang sighed in that overtly exasperated form of one desperately attempting to draw attention to himself. She afforded him the full weight of her gaze. “You know, you haven’t stayed after hours to help me recently. Paperwork, tidying up the cabinets, all of that.”

Her timbre tightened ever so slightly. He would notice, of course, because he knew her, _had_ known her for years. “Well, sir, of course. During your campaign for Führership, the office had much more work to accomplish. Now the work has settled down. At least until the next election.” Before he could interject, she continued, measuring her tranquility with the speed of her breaths: “And I have ensured that everyone has been finishing their work, as I have always done. There’s simply less work.”

He tapped the heel of his shoe against the railing. “So you’ve given up, then.”

Hawkeye arched her eyebrows even though her true emotions lay somewhere between _exhausted_ and _cold_. “Given up on what, sir?”

HIs words came out muffled, as though he were speaking into his collar. “On my becoming Führer.”

She dipped her head. Partially to indicate her agreement, and partially to acknowledge that something had broken irrevocably between them. Not a question of jealousy or of miscommunication: His friendship with Hughes, her friendship with Catalina, their relationships to others had never indicated tension in their own, born of a childhood spent together fighting against the same nightmares and an adulthood spent together fighting for the same dreams.

But the nightmares had passed, and passed away.

And the dreams, like cicadas, would have to burrow back into the soil to re-emerge at the end of Armstrong’s term.

Not a break in their friendship—nor in the time spent together—but in the thread that had woven them together once the mutual fondness of childhood friends faded in fire and smoke and handfuls of dirt tossed into roadside graves.

She would follow him into hell, break the boundaries beyond their worlds, and bring him back if she needed to. Why, then, couldn’t he follow her into the brief heaven she had created for herself on Earth?

Mustang drummed his fingers on the railing; though she could not hear the notes in his mind, she could recognise the pattern of one of his favourite symphonies, from where he was a boy who mastered the piano by himself because he could. Somewhere along the line he had given in to practicality, to the concrete reminder of analog clocks ticking incessantly and the efficiency of taking the shortest route—the straightest distance—from point to point. The boy with the easy smile and the morning-mussed hair had faded to the man who burnt the world to ash in a snap of his fingers. The girl with the white dress and the simple laugh had ebbed to the woman who stared down the barrel of a gun and recognised it as her own. Adults: adult duties, adult worries, adults fears and joys and hopes.

Inhaling, Hawkeye lined her lungs with the sharp frozen air of the evening like an aegis against the onslaught of memory. “I haven’t given up, sir, but we _do_ have to wait until the next election, sir.”

“I see.” He scuffed the pad of his shoe. A silence. Lengthy. Not quite _tense_ , if only for the sudden fatigue that had overtaken her.

She could almost hear her bones creak.

When her façade splintered and fractured down the middle he nearly caught it first, from his sudden motion towards her to snag her wrist. Hawkeye shifted her arms to hang loosely at her sides. His fingers curved around empty air into a fistful of nothingness. “General, what were you and Führer Armstrong discussing, if I may inquire, sir?”

“Quit with the _sirs_ already, Captain. Riza. It’s after hours. Gracia invited us to a goddamn party and you’re still—” He made a vague hand motion. To give said hands something to do. “—being _professional_.”

“It’s what I do best, sir. The anti-fraternisation law hasn’t exactly vanished.” She allowed a smile to pass over her lips but he looked away as though able to call the exact calculation of her facial muscle.

Again the shadows drew over his face, smudging away the features into an inky darkness. “Fire away.”

An not-so-inside joke between them. She heard herself chuckle but felt the opposite. “What transpired here?” The word—not casual whatsoever if not entirely too technical for her tongue—jarred the mirth from his response.

“She doesn’t love you, you know.”

She volleyed back a reply even prior to him closing his mouth fully, even prior to the final trembling note of his message fading into the chill: “And what makes you say that, General?”

Mustang stepped towards the light. Silver on his cheeks, white on his shoulder, like the moon were crying for him. When he spoke his bravado had died down enough for him to sound almost human. She appreciated the effort, intentional or not. “I asked her—” He cut off. Inhaled. Held. Breathed out. Went on. “I asked her: If it came down to you or Amestris, which one would she pick?”

Hawkeye said: nothing; thought: _Amestris_ ; feared: _her_. “What did she say, sir?”

He wrapped his fingers over the knuckles of his either hand. The gloves squeaked. “. . . she chose Amestris.”

“As I expected her to,” answered Hawkeye, softly, softly, the gentleness of her voice undercut by a secondary hint of something else. Pride, perhaps. A fire in her chest at the thought of her future wife staring the Flame Alchemist dead in the eye and affirming over again her understanding of importance, her patriotism, her love and trust in Hawkeye that allowed her to select all of the Amestris and her people.

This was what it meant to be the wife of a king. As Hawkeye reminded him: “She’s the Füh—”

Lunging forward, Mustang grabbed her shoulders. Though she dug her heels to the ground she sensed herself tipping backwards; instantly she dropped to her knees and he fell with her. Dual _thuds_ on the balcony. A panting—him panting—in her left ear, moist and hot and intimate enough that her skin crawled to gooseflesh.

“And for that she has a right to throw you to the side of the road like trash? I’m not jealous of her Führership. Dammit, I love Amestris. And if she’s what’s best for it, then good for fucking her. But, Hawkeye—” Through the fabric of both his gloves and her blouse, his nails curved frowns of pain into the skin of her shoulders. She reached up. Tensed her fingers around his wrists. Pulled downwards. He resisted; she _jerked_ , hard, and his hands slipped from her shoulders, over her collarbones, and into his lap, where they twitched like wounded animals. “—don’t you think that you deserve someone better? Someone who’ll actually follow _you_ into hell. Surely you can do better than the damn Ice Queen—”

The palm of her hand connected with his cheek. A slap so harsh that her hand stung. He choked on his gasp, touching his reddening cheek.

Hawkeye rubbed her palm with the thumb of her other hand. “You don’t usually interfere in my personal life this much. _Sir_. Is something the matter?”

He stared at the fingers that had been caressing his injured cheek. After a moment he unfolded himself from the ground and stood, straightening his collar. “. . . never mind. I apologise, Captain. You’re quite right.”

Touching his shoulder, she shook her head. “I understand, sir. The atmosphere, the recent election, the drinks that Gracia has already poured—don’t worry, General.”

“Mm.”

She watched another leaf skitter across the balcony only to vanish from the side, only to dwindle into the abyss. Clearing his throat, Mustang thumped his fist on his chest as though hacking out al illness. “Anyway, I seem to have developed a bit of a headache. Shall we return to the party, Captain? Gracia must’ve fished up the cake by now.” He forced a laugh; she could recognise his genuine happiness from a kilometre away and this could not be it. “And I’m sure that Elicia’s got a couple thousand new drawings or photographs to show us. Screw me for getting her that camera for her birthday, huh?”

She studied him, false cheer and all. Her heartbeat: one, two, three, four, five, _six_. Exhaling outwards, Hawkeye brushed dirt from the bottom of her skirt, stood, and nodded briskly. “Lead the way, sir. I’ll follow you.”

“As you always will.” _Now_ he smiled affectionately, genuinely. The doors flew open from a quick flick of his wrists. Immediately the heat and light and noise from within chased out the remains of the fear and uncertainty that the night had brought. Elicia was laughing at some some Paninya had told, apparently bawdy enough that Gracia was frowning at her; Edward and Alphonse were struggling to uncork another bottle to be shared around the table; May and Winry _ooh_ ed and _aah_ ed at the cake taking up the centre of the laden dining table; Armstrong had tilted her chair backwards and was rocking back and forth, begging the back legs to snap. But then again tempting fate had always figured into her plans.

Into her plans, and into Hawkeye’s.

Hawkeye spared the stars and the sneering moon overhead a final glance at the sliver of night between the rapidly closing doors disappeared to nonexistence.

Mustang took his seat between Gracia and Winry, the former offering him a plate, the latter elbowing him and inquiring after his team, his work, his personal life in that easy manner of hers to make conversation. She never broke the ice; her very presence vaporised cold the instant she walked into a room.

No wonder she and Armstrong had never quite gotten along. And speaking of Armstrong . . .

Hawkeye tapped May on the shoulder and motioned with a quick nod. May scooted her chair closer to Alphonse’s; Armstrong pursed her lips as Hawkeye scraped a chair in-between the alkahestrist and the Führer. “Sorry about that.”

Armstrong set down her fork with an audible _ping_. “Son of a bitch pisses me off.”

She chuckled. “I can imagine. Ah, make sure Gracia doesn’t hear you cursing in front of her daughter.” Hawkeye winked. “She likes to pretend that young girls don’t know any bad words.”

Armstrong snorted. Hawkeye angled herself over to lean her head on Armstrong’s shoulder, and she less saw than _felt_ her fiancée’s smile. Small, barely there, but existing and existing because of _her_.

“You’ve gone soft, Riza.”

“It’s not my fault that you notice me, Olive. Or that _you_ ’ve gone sweet enough to let me call you that.”

Hawkeye sensed from Armstrong’s colder-than-usual tone that her conversation with Mustang—whatever he had said to her, beyond the initial question, and possibly that Hawkeye had stayed behind with her commanding officer rather than following instantly—continued to twinge at her. But surreptitiously Armstrong slipped her hand under the table to rest on Hawkeye’s knee, and Hawkeye blushed internally. When she brought her glass to her lips—Alphonse had topped her off without her noticing, and she thanked him belatedly—the rim seemed so much cooler than her apparently heated cheeks.

Armstrong massaged the dip of the back of Hawkeye’s knee, just under where the skirt ended, and Hawkeye resisted the urge to kick. Instead she listened. To her friends. To her adopted family, one might say.

A multiple of voices all spilling over one another. “Cut me another slice of the cake!”

“Hey, no fair! You already had a piece!”

“Guys, guys, c’mon, settle down. It’s _really_ obvious who needs seconds, first.”

“Yeah, _me_. Lady with a baby, comin’ through.”

“You’ve had thirds!”

“Well, she _is_ eating for two.”

“It’s not like she’s the only person at this table! Gimme some!”

“Oi, who just stole my fu—”

“A _hem_.”

“—dging cake from my own da—”

“ _Ach-hem_.”

“—rn plate?”

“Heheh.”

“Al, can you _please_ control your girlfriend?!”

“Eh? As if anyone could control me!”

“ _Ehh?_ As if anyone could control her!”

Laughter. Riotous laughter, roaring laughter, bright eyes and wide smiles and clinking utensils on shimmering plates and clinking glasses of shimmering liqueur—or orange juice, in Edward’s case, and apple juice, in Winry’s, much to her facetious complaining—and happiness, the definition thereof captured in a single party, in a single evening, in a single snapshot.

Gracia raised herself from her chair, suddenly, and Hawkeye, along with the others, looked up. Her face radiant, her eyes almost glowing with a mixture of pride and joy, Gracia lifted her glass. “A toast of congratulations to our soon-to-be newlyweds.” Under the table Armstrong clenched Hawkeye’s knee; May giggled and nudged Hawkeye in the ribs. “Take it from an old crone: If you can make one another laugh, then that’s all you need in a marriage. Anything else is just icing atop the cake.” She indicated the barren plate in the middle of the table. “Have a long and wonderful marriage, my dears. And be sure to adopt as many children as you’d like!”

“I already have, Armstrong muttered. “Five million of ‘em.” And the table exploded again into laughter. Glasses clinked. Hawkeye traced a tiny heart on the back of Armstrong’s hand.

Whatever happened, they could push through it. Together.


End file.
